Too burnt out to read this article about preventing burnout? Summon the strength!

This is what happens when you log one too many Red Bull-fueled 80-hour work weeks:

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I remember coming home and curling up into a ball. I was so emotionally and physically exhausted, I couldn’t even move. My productivity was cut to nothing. The next day at the office, I found myself just staring into my computer, for hours. No movement, just staring.

The foremost expert on burnout is University of California psychologist Christina Maslach. The Maslach Burnout Inventory, a diagnostic psychological tool, is named after her. It breaks burnout into three factors:

Exhaustion: feeling over-extended by your work

Depersonalization: feeling alienated from your work

Personal accomplishment: feeling like you can never get enough done

If any of these are creeping into your consciousness, you might want to realign some parts of your working life. Let’s go over a few quick ways to address the physical and psychological risk factors.

John Coates’ book, The Hour Between Dog And Wolf, goes deep into the physiology of stress. In it he observes that exhaustion, fatigue, and anxiety are all “messages sent from our body telling us what actions we should take”–which means that we need to listen closely. To get an idea of how, read our excerpt.

As the Burnout Inventory suggests, burnout isn’t only physical, but also emotional. It happens when we don’t see ourselves in the work we do. An antidote, then, is to do work that’s meaningful.

Finally, you won’t be able to think unless you eat well. According to Dumont, “eating the right food can help extend your runway.” We’d expand that even further: eating with the right people can extend your network.

About the author

Drake Baer was a contributing writer at Fast Company, where he covered work culture. He's the co-author of Everything Connects, a book about how intrapersonal, interpersonal, and organizational psychology shape innovation.